Judge in Menendez trial won't allow talk of prostitution allegations

Here are the highlights from Tuesday's proceedings in the federal corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

Menendez, a Democrat and New Jersey's senior senator, is charged with doing official favors for his friend and co-defendant, Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen, in exchange for expensive hotel stays, private jet flights and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.

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3:45 PM

NEWARK — Lawyers want unsubstantiated allegations that U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez used prostitutes while vacationing in the Dominican Republic mentioned in court during his federal corruption trial.

The argument isn't coming from the lawyers you would expect.

In a lengthy debate Tuesday outside of the jury's presence, attorneys for Menendez and his co-defendant, Salomon Melgen, sought to keep references to those allegations in the proceedings, while prosecutors sought to redact them.

Judge William Walls sided with prosecutors.

The allegations were made in right-wing media during the run-up to Menendez’s 2012 re-election. They were investigated but never corroborated by the FBI. And one of the purported prostitutes later recanted her claim.

At issue are two pieces of potential evidence.

Prosecutors want to use a January 2013 press release from Menendez’s office that claims he flew on Melgen’s private jet on only “three occasions” to demonstrate that the senator, a Democrat, was actively seeking to conceal the true, much higher number of flights he took on Melgen’s jet between the United States and the doctor's villa in the Dominican Republic.

They also want to use a video of Menendez being interviewed on CNN in February 2013, in which he says that when he realized two of those three flights had not been paid for, “I personally paid for that in order to meet my obligation.”

“It is an act of concealment,” prosecutor Monique Abrishami argued.

Prosecutors redacted from the press release the line “any allegations of engaging with prostitutes are manufactured by a politically-motivated right-wing blog and are false.” They also plan to edit out a portion of the CNN interview in which reporter Dana Bash asks about the prostitution allegations. Menendez called the allegations “the smears that right-wing blogs have been pushing since the election.”

Defense attorneys argued that references to the more salacious allegations added context to Menendez’s words.

“In that period of time, the allegations to which the senator and his staff are responding is not simply the issue the government would like to present,” Menendez attorney Abbe Lowell said.

Lowell also hinted that Menendez might take the stand himself, and if he does he should be able to address the more salacious allegations.

“You have to, at some point, allow the senator, whose words are being admitted into evidence, explain why he said those words,” he said.

Melgen attorney Kirk Orgosky said Melgen made similar statements and “the context in which those men made those statements is critical,” adding that he believes Menendez’s statements were “innocuous” and a “mistake.”

Walls said the defense wanted to take the discussion too far out of bounds.

“I am not going to let you get into a discussion on smears and right-wing activity,” he said.

During the regular course of testimony on Tuesday, prosecutors began laying out the case that flights Menendez took on Melgen’s private jet — and sometimes flights Menendez’s guests took — lined up with political favors Menendez did for Melgen.

For instance, according to records and emails, Menendez’s office began to help secure a visa for Melgen’s Ukranian-born girlfriend, Svitalana Buchyk, about six months after he first flew on Melgen’s private jet in August 2006.

Two months after helping with the visa, according to the documents, Menendez flew on Melgen’s plane again. Prosecutors also showed Menendez taking flights on Melgen’s jets less than two months apart from helping him secure visas for two other foreign girlfriends.

Prosecutors also showed that in May 2010, Melgen flew on his private jet with a woman named Gwendolyn Beck to the Dominican Republic, where they met up with Menendez, who had flown down commercially at his own expense.

Menendez had sent Beck’s information to Melgen prior to the flight. In September, 2010, according to records, Melgen’s plane picked up Menendez at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and flew him to West Palm Beach, Florida. There, Meglen’s jet flew them to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Beck — who ran for congress unsuccessfully in Virginia three years ago — was photographed with Menendez at a 2010 White House state dinner.

11:20 AM

NEWARK — U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez won a legal skirmish with prosecutors on Tuesday, when a judge said he would allow Menendez's legal team to tell jurors about official actions the senator took to help people other than his co-defendant, Salomon Melgen.

“At this point, the defense has every prerogative to set up and argue that that was done or not done for friendship, and at the same time, it’s up to me to determine how far I will listen — or let the jury listen — to earlier acts. That’s where I will have to draw the line,” Judge William Walls said in his decision, delivered from the bench.

Attorneys for Menendez, a Democrat, plan to introduce evidence showing he has helped many constituents with visa and other issues during his 11 years in the Senate — the same types of acts he’s alleged to have done for Melgen and his girlfriends from other countries, in exchange for Melgen providing lavish vacations, private jet flights and hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions.

Prosecutors had sought to bar the defense from introducing that evidence. “The fact that, for example, Sen. Menendez took one act on one day tells us nothing about why he took another act, even if it was on the same day,” prosecutor Amanda Vaughn argued in court. “Other acts, whether it’s on visas, health care issues or anything else, cannot tell us anything about why Sen. Menendez took things of values and took those acts.”

Walls, however, said case law allows the introduction of such evidence, and he’ll decide on a case-by-case basis whether to admit it.

“It boils down to two words: 'It depends,'” Walls said.

Walls said he would be inclined to permit acts that are "closer" to those alleged by the government, "both in time and in substance,” he told Vaughn. “I’m not going to let them go back 30 years talking about Boy Scout activities.”

Walls compared his decision to a traditional Ashkanazi Jewish stew.

“It refers to my understanding from Jewish friends of a big pot of stew, a mixture of a lot of things. That term was used to describe the circumstances that you and your adversaries will have,” Walls told Vaughn. “Because I’m prepared to give each of you a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.”

Defense attorneys were satisfied with the decision.

”I think the word is tzimmes,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell, who is Jewish, said of the stew. “It starts with a carrot base and you put lots of things in it, and you are exactly right.”

The trial will break Thursday for Rosh Hashanah, when Lowell said tzimmes is traditionally served.